i'm in for sunday. like @Steamtyme said, maybe we can get a cash game or something going otherwise.


that's definitely part of it.

it's a tricky issue, being that we need to collect the additional buy-ins from players. i've discussed in the SwC chat a couple times and my impression is those regs just wanna register directly and play. you could give them the password and they would play just for the direct buy-in and prize pool, but i don't sense much interest in the series structure and additional buy-ins. we did manage to get @ceehe on board in the first series, but he mostly dropped out in the second.


awesome job, looks great. nice touch with the flags.

some countries never flattened the curve. the USA never did. cases are now at record highs again and it obviously isn't just due to increased testing since hospitalizations are rising too.

the stock market just took a big shit, probably on fear that reopenings will be rolled back due to the worsening coronavirus problem. the phrase of the week seems to be "W-shaped recovery"---expectations are growing that there will be major stagnation after an initial boost in q3 from reopenings, and perhaps overall a longer, rockier recovery.

biden's poll numbers are rising fast---the market may be pricing that in too. there is some consensus that biden would roll back some of trump's tax cuts and business-friendly policies, which would adversely affect the stock market.

the books don't price odds based on what they expect the outcome to be. they price them based on what punters are betting, so they make a small but reliable profit no matter the outcome.

it's the punters (and the pollsters) who seem to have learned from 2016. they aren't betting on a landslide---not yet at least.

trump down to 35%......below 30%, i start betting on him. https://odds.watch/trump-2020

apparently it complies with social distancing requirements. las vegas initially limited tables to 4-max and most casinos are still sticking with that. by installing the dividers, the bellagio was approved for 6-max games and masks aren't required in the poker room. that's a pretty big draw for customers. americans hate masks.

the dividers are probably pretty effective and i assume they are sanitized whenever a player leaves, but i dunno for sure.

there's a certain satisfaction in building a bankroll from nothing. there's no risk involved. i've done it before---back in the day---from freerolls. i'll admit though, 1000 satoshis is way too small to pique my interest.

for some people, $1 may be a lot of money though.

rumor has it that it will go further than that, with full wallet functionality and buy/sell capabilities:


i think that makes sense---paypal would be leveraging their market share against competitor cash app, whose popularity is rising fast on the back of its bitcoin service.

without any explanation from the admins or roger ver, the most popular theory circulating is that the forum is a time/money drain, and that they are consolidating to cut costs. https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/hexwfl/the_bitcoincom_forum_is_closing_on_july_23rd_2020/

given roger ver's grudge against bitcointalk, i'm surprised he would give up his rival forum. tbh it seems sorta unlike him.

i did get that impression but wasn't totally sure since somebody was added to the table on the second hand. it was one of the things (combined with the minraise from early position) that made me wonder if this was his standard open or the old "minraise with monsters to get callers" type thing. i've noticed some players still do this. my standard open is definitely bigger, especially from UTG or UTG+1.

i hope we get an update soon! announcing the series last minute won't exactly boost turnout for the first qualifier. the sunday game (if it's being played) is less than 4 days out at this point.

exactly---except if you are out of position (OOP) vs the active players. then you are at a great disadvantage since you constantly have to act first. dead money is nice but playing handicapped is not.

none of this matters all that much. it's a freeroll after all. i just find the whole thing mystifying tbh. i've never seen anything like this sitout phenomenon before on any other poker site. i don't understand why it happens.

if they are alt accounts intent on chip dumping, why are they sitting out? so many of these accounts just blind out to 0.

it definitely applies to poker. what that odds calculator is showing is the actual probability of winning at showdown---in other words, it assumes neither player folds and the hand plays through to the river.

when this hand is run thousands and thousands of times, it roughly boils down to a 60/40 flip every single time:



if you are consistently playing 60/40 favorites in a cash game setting, then you will profit over the long run.


yes, we also need to incorporate things like fold equity and pot odds and implied odds to get a better understanding of the complete set of probabilities at play.

but those types of odds are "next level" thinking. the most basic level to master first is showdown odds.


or the probability one of your opponents is bluffing, chasing a weak draw, or has a weaker made hand. this brings us to another "next level" concept---playing against ranges of hands rather than one specific hand.

i have a verified paypal account from years ago that i occasionally still use. i don't believe i've ever given them my SSN, address, scan of driver's license or selfie---which have become standard KYC on licensed/regulated platforms like coinbase and square cash app.

if the rumors are true, i bet they'll operate it as a segregated service where people who buy/sell crypto will be subjected to a higher level of KYC.

i was knocked out in 99th---flopped top pair and turned a flush, but then ran into a bigger flush. oh well, i knocked out one player. maybe it was the mystery bounty.


the problem with all the sitouts is it creates a very obvious advantage for some players and a disadvantage for others. when there are only 2 active players at a table (as is often the case) then the player to the right is OOP 7 out of every 9 hands, whereas normal HU play means switching position every hand. that often leads to nonstop bullying from the player in position.

it's great when you're the one at an unfair advantage, or when you're at a table full of sitouts collecting blinds without ever playing a hand, but that isn't an ideal game of poker in my view.

i'm also not sure how all the sitouts help overall site traffic.


i was seated at 2 tables before getting knocked out ~ 1.5 hours in. one had 7 sitouts and the other had 6.

no poker with steve tourney today? i just checked the lobby and it's not there.


yeah, doing it as a micro buy-in money added tourney rather than a freeroll would clean things up a lot. i'm all for it.

congrats on the deep run!


ace-rag gonna ace-rag. off suit at that.

that early position 2x RFI smells like a big hand, no? or was this guy particularly active?


not much to say, tough beat. i'd have done the same.

you can't rely on anything that is chance-based. i will say though, although 60/40 flips are high variance (you will win many and also lose many) they are profitable in the long run. in cash games you can get your chips in all day with those odds.

not exactly---otherwise i'd be betting. most polls were hovering around 80% in favor of clinton on election day IIRC, with betting odds around 75%. we've still got a ways to go from there. betfair is still pricing biden at 57% to win.

trump 37%
biden 58%

https://odds.watch/trump-2020

we're getting there.....


trump in many ways is not a conservative, so you can't view opposition to him as strictly left vs right. lots of right leaning people think he doesn't serve conservative principles, and that he isn't a person of character.

he has also expressed disdain for bitcoin/cryptocurrency---apparently he even wanted to “go after bitcoin” in 2018, so that should have some effect on the views of bitcoin users. https://decrypt.co/32711/trump-first-wanted-to-go-after-bitcoin-in-2018-says-john-bolton


fundamentally, neither.

bitcoin as an investment tends to appeal more to fiscal conservative types because it's so hard/scarce---the same reason there is overlap between gold bugs and right wing philosophies.

however, at its core bitcoin is still just another form of money. most left leaning philosophies don't seek to abolish money itself, and those that do tend to realize the necessity of money in the shorter term. the days where bitcoin users were mostly right leaning libertarians ended many years ago.

bitcoin also isn't the only cryptocurrency---most altcoins have much softer monetary policies. there are even ones that are more inflationary than major fiat currencies, so even the keynesians can take their pick of the lot.


decentralization =/= left or right. this is why libertarians and anarchists can't generally be defined as either. there are right libertarians and there are left libertarians.

the bellagio has done this, installing plexiglass dividers at the tables between players. this allowed them to increase table capacity to 6-max instead of 4-max, and they even removed the requirement to wear masks:




there are presymptomatic and asymptomatic people. also, the problem with temperature checking is that not everyone runs fevers at the same levels. my normal body temp during the day is close to 96 degrees, so if i'm at 98.6 it means i'm probably really sick, yet checking my temperature wouldn't reveal that. such a tricky thing, with so many people carrying the virus.....

it's really not for use at the table---more so for reviewing hands afterwards.

when difficult spots come up, it's important to analyze them after the fact, determine your opponents' ranges, and run the odds so that you better understand where you stand next time.

once you get simple odds down (made hands, draws) then you can start incorporating things like pot odds, fold equity, ICM, etc to get a more complete view of the probabilities at play. poker is all about extracting value in EV+ situations when your opponents are gambling with bad odds.